German Transport Minister Dr. Wissing Rides the Transrapid in Shanghai
On June 24, 2024, German Federal Transport Minister Dr. Volker Wissing and State Secretary Schnorr rode the Transrapid in Shanghai. Besides the Transrapid ride, Wissing and Schnorr have important appointments at the "Transport Logistic Center" trade fair on their program. There they will meet representatives of the transport and digital industries as well as Chinese Transport Minister Li Xiaopeng.
On June 24, 2024, German Federal Transport Minister Dr. Volker Wissing and State Secretary Schnorr rode the Transrapid in Shanghai.
Besides the Transrapid ride, Wissing and Schnorr have important appointments at the “Transport Logistic Center” trade fair on their program. There they will meet representatives of the transport and digital industries as well as Chinese Transport Minister Li Xiaopeng.
Wissing backs the Transrapid
At the federal congress of the Young Liberals (Junge Liberale, the FDP youth organization) on May 5, 2024, German Federal Transport Minister Dr. Volker Wissing spoke out clearly in favor of Transrapid technology and regretted that it was not pursued further in the past. He expressed his support for a motion by the Bremerhaven JuLis to deploy the Transrapid in Europe. This makes him the first transport minister in more than 15 years to publicly back the Transrapid.
“I find the Transrapid impressive and would be glad if it were to succeed on the market, so it’s good that people are still looking into it. I believe it was shelved too early, and in that respect – it has my support”, said Wissing in response to a question from the audience.
Transrapid in Shanghai
For over 20 years the Transrapid has been in continuous commercial operation in Shanghai – making it the fastest commercially operated train in the world to this day. With commercial top speeds of up to 431 km/h on a line only 30 km short, the Transrapid in Shanghai demonstrates what the technology is capable of. On a record run in November 2003, even 501.5 km/h was reached – no other train system manages to achieve such acceleration values on so short a line.
Despite the short line, all four vehicles combined have safely covered nearly 28 million kilometers on the Shanghai line. No other maglev system in the world can beat this mileage. The Transrapid’s use in Shanghai is further proof of the practicality and longevity of nearly wear-free maglev technology.
Thanks to its own independent infrastructure combined with weather-independent, nearly wear-free maglev technology, the Transrapid achieves punctuality figures that are unimaginable for German rail passengers. For over 20 years punctuality has stood at 99.89%, and general availability at 99.94%.
Since 2016, Chinese rail companies and universities have been working on developing a 600 km/h maglev based on German Transrapid technology. The CRRC CF600, unveiled in 2019, has proven on test tracks at low speeds that the technology is ready for use. Besides CRRC Sifang (from Qingdao), CRRC Zhuzhou and Changchun are also working on developing various offshoots of German Transrapid technology, which are described in this article.
